Travels, Trials, and Travails

**Italics represent journal excerpts

I. That time when 30k became 70k… (July 2010)

            Due to various misreadings of the map and misconceptions of distance, not to mention various conversational misunderstandings if not misleadings, I embarked early one morning for what I thought would be a straight-forward 30 kilometer bike ride to Ankarafa, home of the blue-eyed lemurs.  I met my accompaniment at an inconspicuous dirt-road turn off.  The dusty sign announced Ambolobozo 65k; I was really happy I was not going to Ambolobozo.

            It was a beautiful morning and at first the going was fairly smooth.  Then it became rather hilly, then mountainous; as my friend’s bike had no operable gears and little in the way of brakes, we were forced to walk up and down the numerous steep slopes.  The road also began to deteriorate rapidly, whole gullies were washed out and we had to walk long, impassibly rocky stretches as well.  We started to climb…and climb…and climb. Pushing my bike was like hiking with an extremely heavy extra limb.  The road curved forever up and away, and I began to regret every item I had packed, including every single page of the Brothers Karamazov.

            We stopped for rice just after noon in a quiet, dusty little village that as much as I wanted it to would not admit to being Ankarafa.  When we continued, I began asking those people we passed if it was still far, and invariably received the answer “mbola lavi-davitry,” which I interpreted as “sorta far” but in retrospect might well have meant “REALLY [EXPLETIVE] FAR.”  At last someone gave a quantifiable answer: 12k.  It seemed a manageable distance.

            Afternoon pushed on and I continued to push my bike, hating each of the Brothers Karamazov in turn.  One of our party’s members now mentioned “stopping by” Ambolobozo: remembering that 65k my optimism evaporated.  I wanted to cry.  The sun sank lower and I began to wonder if we would make it by sunset.  Internally, I gave myself permission to cry if we didn’t.

            I was informed, with a look of extreme pity, that 15k remained.  I began to distrust that these people had any sense of distance at all.  The sun set; the moon rose; I had left my house at 5:45am.  I pushed my bike, stared at my feet, and thought: this road can’t go on forever.

            Then I looked up and there were huts and tents and welcoming faces.  I dropped my accursed bike with a clatter and raising my arms in victory, shouted out “TONGA!” Literally, this translates to “arrival” but in my desperate state it clearly meant: “we made it! somehow….”  This is, by now, the stuff of legend, my indecorous arrival, a story told and retold to the general amusement of all.  I don’t mind. I’m just happy I didn’t cry.

II. That time I was attacked by a Suicidal Goat (April 2011)

            A tried and true method for survival of long, hot, cramped brousse rides is the zone-out.  Don’t count the miles, don’t shift positions: sheer endurance zen.

            Of course, this is often easier said than done. One day, you emerge from your zen-state of higher consciousness wondering how it can be raining when it is so beautifully sunny.  Slowly, you realize that everyone is yelling, somewhat illogically, the word “goat” or the command “close the window, idiot.”  Now thoroughly back on the plane of mortal thought you recognize that you have been the victim of bladder limitations and gravitational fate.

            Oh well, all the better for your quest for transcendence that no one will sit near you.  You focus on the landscape whizzing past, the green melding with the blue of the sky, yes things are clear now, you are beginning to understand that – WHAM! All you see is a struggling mass of brown fur, hooves, and panicked eyeballs. Somebody is screaming.  No wait, that is you screaming.  Everyone else is screaming: “hold it up!” Hold up what?  Oh, the goat.  The goat that just wriggled loose of its bindings, leapt tethered by a single hoof suicidally from the roof rack, and, in a parabola of terror, slammed into your window.

            Someone with greater presence of mind rescues it and immediately reattaches the goat.  Zen you decide to leave for another brousse ride, another day.

III. That time I was Adrift on a Sea of Despair (October 2010)

            For days we had hop scotched in and out of the boat composing lists, in search of stamps, asking in exasperation “your president fokontany went where now?”  Today was our final day and when we had woken up our navigator/anchor hauler, a teenage boy in faded, Hawaiian print shorts, he had yelled: “Home today! That means beer!”

            After asking directions—a humorous endeavor on the open seas—we arrived at a particular break in the mangroves.  A few K on foot, talk to some folk, check who died since 2006 and who still has chickens.  Done at last, beer here we come.  But back at the boat we discover our navigator/anchor hauler (and dare I mention, boat guardian) missing, along with another young (female) passenger we had collected for the return trip.

            Forced to push out by the retreating tide, the first hour passes.  It is brutally, shadelessly hot (in fact, my dialect’s word for hot, “mai,” which translates in official Malagasy as “burnt,” was the most relevant term for what was happening to my poor, Caucasian existence).  I am attempting to hid every exposed inch of skin under fabric without suffocation.  It is a tenuous balance.

            A long and spirited discussion is conducted on the ethicality of abandoning our young ship hand miles of open water from home.  Another hour plods by and someone is sent off in search.  As I begin to muse over sunstroke and other negative thoughts, he returns empty handed.

            Adrift on a sea of despair, another half hour passes.  Clouds drift everywhere but over the sun.  I begin to feel the borderline insanity of my brain boiling.  At last they reappear, this pair responsible for the leeching of all my future intelligence, all a-giggling in a way I suddenly despise about teenagers.  Without a word we push off, I still harboring a deep, deranged sentiment for leaving them to the fishes.

IV. That time I had a Bag of Vomit thrown at me (November 2010)

            Again, a brousse ride has forced to seek a sanctum of inner zen.  But today it is not even worth the effort.  This particular road looks like has been bombed and your driver, a possible victim of said bombing, is a maniac, plunging in and out of the gaping holes in the asphalt as though he is behind the wheel of a tank not that of a beat-up passenger van.

            Everyone is throwing up: women, children, full-grown men, white-person.  Needless to say, morale is low, and the general feeling is that you would all rather die than proceed one more kilometer down this godforsaken road.

            Your van comes to a halt before a cluster of huts, where an older woman is most fastidiously sweeping a patch of dirt.  Someone exits the vehicle and someone else tosses their bag of vomit on to the patch of dirt.  This is gross, certainly, but you are all in a weakened state: a minute ago none of you cared to live.

            It is a second before you all realize the gravity of this mistake.  The women turns and, with full force of fury, begins to harangue you, culprits and innocents alike.  Though her language is profane and her manner truly fearsome, you all dare to find this a little ridiculous; it is, after all, just a patch of dirt.

            But then she picks up the bag of vomit and advances upon you.  Fun quickly turns to panic.  Doors and windows are slammed shut; mothers selflessly shield children; the maniac driver slams on the gas.  SPLAT! You all stare at the back window in horror at a fate narrowly escaped.

V. That time when Wrenches Flew (September 2011)

            I surveyed our transport.  We were to take the soda truck, or rather the beer truck.  But now was not the time to be picky as I had resolutely refused to walk, bike, or otherwise locomotor myself to our destination.  Want to know why?  Kindly revisit Part I: we were to return to that dusty little town I had so desperately hoped was Ankarafa.

            We were sixteen adults crammed in a space originally designed for, at most, eight.  Of course the vehicle had long ago strayed from its original design: stripped bare, wooden benches riveted to the floor, a backseat that constantly threatened an unexpected exit through the rear door.  As its occupants did not appear particularly concerned though, I decided I wouldn’t be bothered about it either unless I observed a noticeably lighter load.

            The usual situating, an unidentifiable screech from the cassette player, a hand slammed into the door, and we were off.  But at a hardly admirable pace.  This was the kind of bumpy transit where wrenches were flying off the dashboard, and the occupants were flying all over the vehicle. (Although one could fairly ask how positive an indicator the wrenches on the dash were in the first place.)

            It’s an apt play on words, for we were in fact wrenched about mercilessly, rattling about until our brains hurt, vision shakily impaired, and internal organs hopelessly jumbled.  Our vehicle, unlike its overly equipped American counterparts, completely lacked the “Oh [expletive] handle" that would have been oh so handy.  Thus we clung to the frame, the windowsills and, more often than not, each other in a desperate attempt to stay upright and sane.

            When we arrived 36k and four hours later—having pushed the car through five impassible sections and walked many others—we were demonstrably neither.